Perception

WHAT IS PERCEPTION ?
• The word perception origins from the Latin ‘percipere’ or
‘perceptum’ and is based on three words,
• ‘per’ which means ‘thoroughly’
• ‘capere’ or ‘ceptum’ means ‘to grasp’
• ‘-ion’ which means an action, process or state.
• Thus perception means -
• An act of becoming aware, gaining knowledge or
comprehending, or grasping through senses,
• A process of becoming aware, gaining knowledge or
comprehending, or grasping through senses,
• A product of becoming aware, gaining knowledge or
comprehending, or grasping through senses,
• The capacity for becoming aware, gaining knowledge
or comprehending, or grasping through senses.
 WHAT IS PERCEPTION ?
• These definitions of perception are concerned mainly
with our immediate impressions, our sensory experience
of our surroundings, rather than with our images,
thoughts, or reasoned beliefs regarding them.
• This definition excludes several otherwise proper usages
–
• “I perceive him to be dishonest” (belief)
• “I perceive the problem” (judgment)
• Distinction between sensation and perception made by
Thomas Reid
• The sensation is subjective experience or feeling that
results from excitation of sensory receptors –
experience of fragrance
• Perception is the sensory experience that has been
interpreted with reference to its presumed external
stimulus object or event – experience of fragrance of
rose
 WHAT IS PERCEPTION ?
• Perception has been also differentiated from
apperception by Leibniz
• Apperception is referred to as the process of
comprehending a perception by integrating it with
similar or related perceptions or previously acquired
knowledge.
• Apperception also means the awareness of the act or
experience of perceiving, or self consciousness in
contrast to perception.
 WHAT IS PERCEPTION ?

A
P
P
E
Perception R
C
Reality E
Sense Data P
T
I
O
N
Sensibilia Sensation

Qualia
 ROLE OF PERCEPTION
1. Perception reflects separate relations inherent in
objects and processes of the external world, e.g. color,
size etc.
2. Perception make it possible to single out an integral
object from the surroundings (figure-ground relation).
3. Perception may serve as a sign of other properties of the
object which are not observable, if we know beforehand
the connection between the percept and these
properties.
4. Perception may serve as models of other objects not
observable but similar in some respects to the one
perceived.
5. Perception may serve as a basis for forming complex
conceptions.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF PERCEPTION
1. Organisation : Perception involves organisation of
sensory inputs into a patterned object or objects in
space. We never see mere cluster of colour points.
2. Holistic : A percept is always complete, it is never
incomplete or half. Thus, perception follows all-or-
nothing properties.
3. Constancy : Perception display constancy to a high
degree - a white house seems to remain so despite
immense variation in light from morning to evening.
4. Transposable : Perception is broadly transposable - a
triangular stimulus can be directed to many different
parts of the retina without changing perception.
5. Selectivity : Perceptual processes operate selectively -
for the hungry organism food related objects assume
figure qualities.
6. Flexibility : Perceptual processes are very flexible - the
regular black and white pattern of a tile floor assumes a
PROBLEM OF PERCEPTION
 APPROACHES TO PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES
EVOLUTIONARY POINT OF VIEW
• how sensory information helps the species to survive and
reproduce
• the way in which animal senses vary to provide the
information needed for their survival and reproduction
• good colour vision – fruit - distinguishing ripe from
unripe fruit and both from leaves
• Birds, Humans, Bees
• Evolutionary Psychologists, Ethologists and Comparative
Psychologists
• Why ? Or how come ?
• concerned with relationship between proximal stimuli,
distal stimuli, physiological processes, perceptual world
on one hand and survival and reproduction on the other.
 APPROACHES TO PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES
APPLIED POINT OF VIEW
• This point of view is focused on studying how the senses
are used in the everyday world.
• Our vision may not have evolved to permit us to drive our
automobiles faster than the hunting cheetah.
• What are the visual requirements of this task ? To what
extent do we all meet them ? How can they be made less
demanding ? Should automobile control panels be lit
with red lights ? Should signs using movement or
apparent movement be banned from the highways ?
• People who study applied point of view are Engineering
psychologists or Human Factors Psychologists.
• This point of view mainly focuses on question such as
how well ?
• This approach is concerned with work related
performance.
 APPROACHES TO PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES
PHYSIOLOGICAL OR NEUROLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW
• This point of view essentially focuses on basic questions - how
do our senses and our brains operate to give us information
about the world ?
• How do our eyes and brains process information regarding
colour, information probably denied to the cow ?
• What are the parts of the eye and how do they work ?
• Somehow information in light striking the eye must be
converted into the firing of millions of nerve cells - and,
through the further firing of millions more, an experience of
the world is produced, with its ripe and unripe fruit, its
multicoloured insects, hunting cheetahs, green grass, and
yellow Volkswagons. How ?
• Those exploring such issues are using the physiological point of
view, the second oldest way of dealing with senses and
perception.
• People who study from this point of view are Physiological
Psychologists, Neuropsychologists, Neurobiologists or
Psychobiologists.
 APPROACHES TO PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES
INTROSPECTIVE OR PHENOMENOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW
• This is the oldest perceptual point of view which examines
perceptual experience itself and attempts to account for it, without
much regard for physiology or evolutionary point of view.
• It is within this point of view we find some sub point of view such
as gestaltist, structuralists, functionalists, behaviourists etc.
• Introspective point of view uses carefully controlled laboratory
experiments, with expensive apparatus which can precisely
measure things to look at, listen to, smell, taste or touch.
• However, this point of view does have a major limitation : It is
much more difficult to use with animals than with humans. Even
with humans, it tends to be restricted to adults who are good
observers and describers of their experiences.
• In compensation there are several advantages. While we are
presumably a long way from finding a physiology of aesthetics, or
even describing the role of art in human survival, we can at least
study our relevant experiences.
• People who study from this point of view are Experimental
Psychologists.
 APPROACHES TO PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES
PSYCHOPHYSICAL POINT OF VIEW :
• This point of view tends to ask how much ?
• That is, how much light is needed before we can detect it
half the time ?
• How much change in the number of beans in a jar, for
example does it take before we can reliably tell the
difference ?
• How much louder are sixteen violins than one ?
• This point of view largely comes from introspectionist
point of view. Questions of how much tend to have
quantitative answers, and thus it is one of the more
mathematical areas of psychology.
• Further, the use of word ‘physics’ should not be taken
lightly. While this point of view deals in numbers of
beans or violins, it is much more likely to use the units of
physics, controlling and specifying precisely the nature
of their stimulus situations.
 APPROACHES TO PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES
PSYCHOPHYSICAL POINT OF VIEW :
• Such a quantitative point of view, in addition to finding
precise answers to questions of how much, has had
unexpected pay-offs for other areas of psychology. Within
perception, for example, the study of how much light it
takes to be detectable has helped to determine how the
eye works physiologically. Psychophysical measures in
hearing, too, are often closely related to the physiology
of the ear.
• Outside of perception, psychophysical point of view has
primarily provided methods of measurement. The same
techniques used to relate, say, loudness to the number of
violins playing can also be used to scale non-perceptual
experience, such as occupational prestige.
• This point of view is adopted by the psychophysicists.
• This approach is concerned with relationships between
proximal stimuli and the perceptual world.
 APPROACHES TO PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES
INFORMATION PROCESSING POINT OF VIEW :
• Another outgrowth of the introspective point of view is
the information processing point of view. Partly as a
result of computer developments in the last few decades,
some psychologists and some engineers have become
concerned with human information processing over time.
• This includes how the information is transformed, how
long it is stored, in what form, and other factors, much
as if a human were a computer carrying out a program.
• In vision, we are continually moving our eyes about,
making about three or four separate fixations each
second. Information processing psychologists have been
able to study the processes guiding our fixations, the
storage of information from them, and how the
information is put together to form a stable view of the
world.
• This approach is concerned with relationship between
perceptual world and distal stimuli.
 APPROACHES TO PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES
INFORMATION PROCESSING POINT OF VIEW :
• Bionics is the application of biological methods and
systems found in nature to the study and design
of engineering systems and modern technology.
• A visual prosthesis, often referred to as a bionic eye, is
an experimental visual device intended to restore
functional vision in those suffering from partial or
total blindness.
• In 1983 Joao Lobo Antunes, a Portuguese doctor,
implanted a bionic eye in a person born blind.
• Many devices have been developed, usually modeled on
the cochlear implant or bionic ear devices, a type
of neural prosthesis in use since the mid-1980s.
• The idea of using electrical current (e.g., electrically
stimulating the retina or the visual cortex) to provide
sight dates back to the 18th century, discussed
by Benjamin Franklin, Tiberius Cavallo, and Charles
 APPROACHES TO PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES
INFORMATION PROCESSING POINT OF VIEW :
• Computer vision is concerned with the theory behind
artificial systems that extract information from images.
The image data can take many forms, such as video
sequences, views from multiple cameras, or multi-
dimensional data from a medical scanner. As a
technological discipline, computer vision seeks to apply
its theories and models for the construction of computer
vision systems. Sub-domains of computer vision include
scene reconstruction, event detection, video
tracking, object recognition, object pose estimation,
learning, indexing, motion estimation, and image
restoration. Examples of applications of computer vision
include systems for: (a) Controlling processes, e.g.,
an industrial robot; (b) Navigation, e.g., by
an autonomous vehicle or mobile robot; (c) Detecting
events, e.g., for visual surveillance or people counting;
(d) Organizing information, e.g., for indexing databases
of images and image sequences; (e) Modeling objects or
 APPROACHES TO PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES
INFORMATION PROCESSING POINT OF VIEW :
• Robust Vision (RV) - new sensing technologies and
robust algorithms that allow robots to use visual perception in
all viewing conditions: night and day, rain or shine, summer or
winter, fast moving or static.
• Vision and Action (VA) - new theory and methods for using
image data for control of robotic systems that navigate
through space, grasp objects, interact with humans and use
motion to assist in seeing.
• Semantic Vision (SV) - novel learning algorithms that can both
detect and recognise a large, and potentially ever increasing,
number of object classes from robotically acquired images,
with increasing reliability over time.
• Algorithms and Architectures (AA) - create novel technologies
and techniques to ensure that the algorithms developed across
the themes can be run in real-time on robotic systems
deployed in large-scale real-world applications.
 APPROACHES TO PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES
• While we have discussed separate point of view of study
of perceptual processes, it would be a mistake to see
them as incompatible or as representing warring
factions.
• Information gathered by the various approaches may be
combined to provide a fuller understanding of perception
than any one of them could give alone.
 What is reality ?
• Reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather
than as they may appear or might be imagined.
• What about Pokemon Go?
• How to create it ?
• How to use it ?
• What are A
P
impacts ? P
Augmented E
Perception R
C
Reality E
Sense Data P
T
I
O
N
Sensibilia Sensation

Qualia
 What is mixed reality ?
• Mixed reality (MR), sometimes referred to as hybrid
reality, is the merging of real and virtual worlds to
produce new environments and visualizations where
physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real
time. Mixed reality takes place not only in the physical
world or the virtual world, but is a mix of reality and
virtual reality, encompassing both augmented reality and
augmented virtuality.
 What is virtual reality ?
• Virtual reality or virtual realities (VR), also known as
immersive multimedia or computer-simulated reality, is a
computer technology that replicates an environment,
real or imagined, and simulates a user's physical
presence and environment to allow for user interaction.
Virtual realities artificially create sensory experience,
• Training • Archaeology
which can include sight, touch, hearing,APPLICATIONS
and smell.
• Video games • Architecture • BAMZOOKi
• Architectural • STEM • EyeToy
design Education
• FightBox
• Urban design • Commerce
• Magic Leap
• Therapy • Literature
• Microsoft
• Concerts • Visual art Hololens
• Retail • Emergency • Nokia Point &
management/ Find
• Media
search and
• ZSpace
• Museums rescue
 What is reality ?
• How to create it ?
• How to use it ?
• What are impacts ? Dangers ?
• As method
• Possible to bend the laws of A
perception P
P
Virtual E
Perception R
C
Reality E
Sense Data P
T
I
O
N
Sensibilia Sensation

Qualia
 Qualia
• Examples of Qualia
• Perceived sensation of pain of a headache
• The taste of wine,
• The redness of an evening sky.
• As qualitative characters of sensation, qualia stand in
contrast to "propositional attitudes", where the focus is
on beliefs about experience rather than what it is directly
like to be experiencing.
• Characteristics of Qualia :
• Ineffable : that is, they cannot be communicated, or
apprehended by any other means than direct experience.
• Intrinsic; that is, they are non-relational properties, which
do not change depending on the experience's relation to
other things.
• Private; that is, all interpersonal comparisons of qualia are
systematically impossible.
 Perception

A
Virtual P
Reality P
Illusion E
After R
C
Reality Sense Data images E
As of now Above
P
T
Threshold I
Perception O
N
Sensibilia
Reality

Sensation
Subliminal
Below Perception
Threshold

Positive
Augmented Hallucination
Reality Negative
 Perception
E
X
T
RA
S
Illusion EN
SO
Reality Sense Data R
As of now Perception YP
? E
Threshold
? Subliminal RC
Sensibilia
Reality

Sensation Perception E
? P
T
Cognition I
? ON
Hallucination
 What is extrasensory perception ?
• Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense,
includes reception of information not gained through the
recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind.
• The term was adopted by Duke University psychologist J.
B. Rhine.
• Parapsychology is the study of paranormal psychic
phenomena, including ESP.
• Parapsychology has been criticized for continuing
investigation despite being unable to provide convincing
evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena
after more than a century of research.
• The scientific community rejects ESP due to the absence
of an evidence base, the lack of a theory which would
explain ESP, the lack of experimental techniques which
can provide reliably positive results, and considers ESP
to be pseudoscience.